I remember being young and imagining how it would be to be blind. To wake up one day and not be able to see any more. Or to be deaf and not to be able to hear what people were saying to me. My brother and I would ask each other, if we had to choose, would we rather be blind or rather be deaf? I don't remember what my preference was back then (obviously, neither) but I do remember suddenly imagining something even worse: think what it would be like being deaf AND blind! That always made us quiet, the idea of such a terrible fate.
I remember not long after that, my older sister Jo explaining to me that 'disabled people' as we called them then, were not necessarily 'disabled'. They are just forced to live in a world surrounded by people with one or two physical advantages over them. In a way, it's us that makes them disabled. Again I was quiet.
Later on I was at university in Harrow. We had a modern campus with ramps, lifts, signs and all that stuff. This is the paraphernalia we are all used to seeing in the UK, which has slowly become more and more visible. It's there to make the lives of this 'disabled' minority a little bit easier. It's a victory for the forces of consideration and the rights of the individual, and of course it's a very good thing. And so we can all feel good about ourselves and feel how clever we are for being so inclusive.
I was at this campus and I saw a middle-aged man with dark glasses and a stick. He must have been blind or partially-sighted. I watched him as he walked confidently alone alongside the car park, on a path surrounded by neatly-trimmed bushes. And then the cruellest thing happened: one single bramble plant was somehow, improbably but lethally, hanging out at eye-level. It was absurd to look at, sticking out like that, almost as if it was there on purpose waiting to catch someone unaware. The thorns scratched deeply across his face and he began screaming in pain, bleeding horribly. There was not much I could do to help him. The injury was cruel, but worse was the feeling that hit me, the understanding of this being one of countless injustices someone like him has to face in the course of their lives. No matter how hard we think we try, the able-bodied, sighted, hearing majority will always be ignorant of the petty miseries we are probably causing people like him.
Anyway, I'm thinking about this because of the job I've been doing this evening (and on and off for the last year), translating the contents of byggforalle.no , a website funded by the Norwegian state which is supposed to give an overview of public buildings for persons with disabilities. There are considerations being made for lighting, toilets, hearing apparatus, even colours inside and outside buildings which can make all the difference to these people. It's another job worth doing, I think.
I really should be getting on with it, then...
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